Saturday, May 12, 2007

A Happy Retraction

To set the record straight, John Lewis wrote me privately about his George Mason University talk of April 24th, and what a debacle it was. He remarked: “The college paper got it wrong when it wrote that I said that Islam was peaceful. The point I made to the audience was that I had not said it was violent; I just read a bunch of violent quotes from Muslims, and it is those Muslims who say it is violent. Draw your own (obvious) conclusion. The crowd showed us just how close to violence they are.”

So, I am retracting whatever I said John said about Islam not being violent, as reported by the Broadside. I trusted Broadside's reporters to get it right, and apparently they didn't. John and I are more in agreement than disagreement. However, I must thank him for the earwax idea. I think the paper quoted him correctly on that.

7 comments:

Doc Savage
said...

Consider the fact that muslims represent less than 1% of the U.S. population, probably much less, and considering the fact that radical leftists probably represent about that much as well, what Professor Lewis walked into was an intensely irrational swamp, which is far from indicative of the American population at large. The point may be obvious, but I think it’s worth emphasizing.

What the event made all the more clear is how the real enemies here are leftist intellectuals, because they are providing the red carpet for our enemies. Any pathetic culture they can foist on us, they will, and they have all kinds of imaginative “history” to argue their position, as Professor Windschuttle has noted: LINK

They are a very corrupt and not well armed intellectually.

At the end of the day, these people had no ideas to offer, and Professor Lewis was heroic against the barrage of nuttiness.

"Consider the fact that muslims represent less than 1% of the U.S. population, probably much less, and considering the fact that radical leftists probably represent about that much as well..."

I agree that America's muslims are 1% of the popluation or so. But I would disagree with the statement that the hard left is also 1%. IMO, that is way, way, way too low. I don't have data on this but I think that the hard "angry" left may represent half of all Democrats. Even if they don't, they dominate Democrat politics and they dominate Hollywood. In essence, the hard left is a dominant intellectual force (if it can be called "intellectual") in the culture. The old Kennedy style liberals are not politically relevant. The new anti-American leftists are. They should not be underestimated.

Dr. Lewis was incredibly heroic to lecture in such conditions. He was facing the barbarians within the gates.

2) 55% of all Democrats in a recent survey indicated that left unchecked, global warming will cause human life to cease to exist on earth.

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=26842

These two beliefs -- that Bush was involved in 9/11 or had knowledge of it, and that global warming will destroy mankind -- are two of the radical left's cherished notions. If 35% to 55% of Democrats believe these things, then, given that Democrats make up about 35% of the population, that means 12% to 19% of the population believes it.

This doesn't prove that the radical left is 12% to 19% of the population, but I think it is a valid indicator that they make up are far more than 1%.

The radical left comprises those haters of the good for being the good -- who are actually haters of reason and its manifestations -- that are driven by their hatred to seek the destruction of the three greatest manifestations of reason left in existence: the United States of America, the industrial technology upon which civilization depends, and the last remnants of capitalism: the men of ability that keep it all working.